Hobbs Switch Testing

[TRP45ACP]

Gotcha. One thing to note as I think through this a bit more. The led shows power going to the pump; however, doesn't indicate whether the pump is actually operational. With my pump failure this week, my pump had power but was not pumping. Food for thought.

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[andrewtac]

Gotcha. One thing to note as I think through this a bit more. The led shows power going to the pump; however, doesn't indicate whether the pump is actually operational. With my pump failure this week, my pump had power but was not pumping. Food for thought.

correct, and others have told me this is why it is useless. I am just checking the hobbs, and the controller. The alternative is no LED and not knowing if power is going to the pump. I usually log all planned pulls, sometimes things just happen and I don't. I do have a fuel pressure gauge in the car as well, but like the LED it is hard to monitor when at WOT. I have thought about putting in a warning system to catch low fuel pressure (maybe audio, or large flashing red light), but probably won't.

Edit to add...some tuners and people don't like the idea of the hobbs switch or controller as they can fail and you don't get fuel. This was my mitigation, does't lower failure rate, just increases my likelihood of noticing it. And it has worked, I had a wire going to ground on the 2nd pump and it was blowing the fuse. It was obvious right away with the light. No LED and I would not have noticed this; also this had nothing to do with hobbs or controller, this was pump in the tank. If the pumps fails, it doesn't care that there is a hobbs switch or not; I am no better off. And in theory, since I don't run my 2nd pump all the time it has less hours on it, my fuel remains cooler, and overall the system should last longer; I know all theory.

 

[Angrey]

A more elegant solution would be to have a status light for fuel pressure. In the end, that's ultimately what you're trying to monitor and ensure is present (and lackthereof which causes lean condition), with several possible failure points supporting (bad switch, pump failure, poor voltage, booster failure, etc). The problem with boosted applications is that nearly everyone is indexed so the pressure rises accordingly with boost. A simple binary status light with a pressure threshold would be easy, but a status light that tracks to base pressure + boost index would be much more challenging.

 

[andrewtac]

A more elegant solution would be to have a status light for fuel pressure. In the end, that's ultimately what you're trying to monitor and ensure is present (and lackthereof which causes lean condition), with several possible failure points supporting (bad switch, pump failure, poor voltage, booster failure, etc). The problem with boosted applications is that nearly everyone is indexed so the pressure rises accordingly with boost. A simple binary status light with a pressure threshold would be easy, but a status light that tracks to base pressure + boost index would be much more challenging.

Agree, but that was more than I wanted to do at the time. I think a horn or flashing light would be better. As I am usually focused on eyes out and might not notice the red led. Either way, yes low fuel P would be better than what I am doing.

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